Why I Support Foreign/Indie Animation

With Annecy happening as we speak, I thought I would write up another editorial about it, and why I support the foreign/indie animation scene. It’s looking to be a rather fruitful year at the festival, and if you know anything about me, I am ready and willing to be provocative and educated about what is coming out, and to make sure everyone else is aware, too. With this festival alone, we have films from all over Europe, Spain, Italy, Japan, China, Philippines, Taiwan, Brazil, Chile, Ireland, New Zealand, and South Korea. Some of these countries even do collaborations with one another across the cinematic spectrum. 

The projects range from vibrant 2D features to ambitious CGI features, and some even use a more mixed-media approach. It’s such an exciting world to cover in film journalism, but it always feels underrepresented. Not that I’m expecting everyone to love animation to the same level that I do, but unless these films get rave reviews from Cannes, where they tend to be out-of-competition screenings for some reason, no one seems interested until the cruel game of critic review battle royale up until the Oscar voting process begins. Animation already has a challenging time getting respected, even when a film like KPop Demon Hunters became one of the most important and influential movies of 2025. It’s even harder for foreign or indie animation to gain even a modicum of respect United States animation barely gets, unless it’s a studio that has favoritism with voters like Studio Ghibli or Cartoon Saloon. 

With what’s going on, or I guess what’s not going on within the US animation scene due to a lack of greenlighting projects, my emphasis on and adoration for animation overseas has only grown, with a wish to see more of these projects brought over to the US. I love what GKIDS is doing, and I give kudos to certain distributors like CMC Pictures giving Chinese animated features very small releases, but they aren’t enough when companies like Neon and A24 are still trying to learn how studios like GKIDS make it work. When you step outside of the comfort bubble of US-based animation, you can find yourself lost in a world of not only animation with a variety of different visual styles, but also unique stories. 

Something that seems to be ironic about fans of animation, who say they want more diversity in its stories or art styles in animated features, is that they tend to, whether the film got a limited release, wide release, or straight to VOD, not show up for them. They want deeper , more human , darker stories, but then they actually don’t. They demand films like Decorado, Another World, or something like Anomalisa, but instead, they find their tolerance and attention span more on the level of something like Peppa Pig. Not that there is anything wrong with not liking more grown-up storylines, because even for someone like me, I want to be in the right headspace for it, but don’t ask for something when you realize it’s not what you really want. 

For example, let’s look at some of the stories being told in this year’s Annecy line-up. A daughter deals with her mom’s dementia diagnosis in the feature adaptation of Sarah Leavitt’s book of the same name, Tangles. A young boy deals with a serious medical issue while the times change around his family’s farm in Le Corset. A Mossad secret agent tracks two Nazi executioners in The Sunrise Files. Two young boys befriend one another until a mysterious incident tears their world apart in a powerful depiction of the themes of bullying and isolation via Kohei Kadowaki’s We Are Aliens. A story of two lovers, having their lives torn asunder, woven through the eyes of an aging violinist in the aptly named The Violinist. A group of lonely yokai, aka demons, impersonate the iconic Monkey King party as a sham then become their own heroes in the surprise hit Nobody.  A husband struggling to find meaning in life suspects that the whole world around him is some large horror-filled stage in Decorado. You get the idea, right? 

Even within the Contrechamp section that showcases films that expand on the way animated films are made through thematic storytelling not commonly told through animation, there is a beautiful selection of films to anticipate. A young girl in a village that forbids men has to deal with a life-changing magical event  after a traveling band of actors comes to the village in Muyi and the Handsome General. A family struggles with their own emotional challenges of finding love, respect, and acceptance among not only their peers but their own family told through a realistic 2D cutout visual style in Blaise. A papercraft-made, that is, with colored paper and stop-motion techniques, animated sci-fi adventure concerns a man lost in a void with Spacetime Chronicles. What about a beautiful adaptation of a graphic novel of a young Black boy finding out about himself through a journey accompanied by mermaids and animated by the highly acclaimed Irish studio Cartoon Saloon, the same studio behind Song of the Sea, The Breadwinner, and Wolfwalkers, via Julian? New Zealand is putting out their first stop-motion animated feature with Kiri and Lou Go Raaa!. There are a few animated features coming from the Philippines, like Zsazsa Zaturnnah, about a gay man who ends up with the powers to turn into a heroic Amazonian woman who must save the world, and 58th, which is about the survivor of the Maguindanao Massacre, a horrific tale of 58 people of Ampatuan, heading to file a certificate of candidacy for the vice mayor of Buluan, who were kidnapped and killed. 

Not to say there aren’t any more approachable films about heady philosophical quandaries, but even then, there are some promising films. For instance, China has the musical adventure Tana about a young woman who travels from Shanghai to the Mongolian Grasslands to find her voice to become a better musician. The French director, Sebastien Laudenbach, the man behind The Girl Without Hands and Chicken for Linda!, which were previous Annecy winners, has a new movie that is an adaptation of the famous opera Carmen called Viva Carmen! 

Even then, the more approachable films still offer something you don’t quite get from within the US animation scene with feature films. It’s not that there aren’t some ambitious filmmakers within the US scene of animation, but when you begin to notice the current state of the industry and how studios like Disney are letting execs kneecap creatives, what is there to be excited for? Obviously there are plenty of promising and exciting films coming out, like Laika’s Wildwood, about a girl searching for her brother through a whimsical world, and DreamWorks’s Forgotten Island, a story about two girls stuck on the forsaken Forgotten Island and have to help each other get off it before the island claims their memories, but those two films are in a sea of playing it safe with so many films forgetting that animation is for everyone, and needing to stop just aiming at a child or family audience. People are craving new experiences, and when you see the reception to both the upcoming Hexed and Shrek 5 met with tepid responses, why wouldn’t you want to explore beyond the films the US scene is making? When even the more “family friendly” films from overseas from the likes of Aardman, for example, treat the audiences with respect by not needing to modernize their writing, cater to audiences with shorter attention spans, and go at their own pace with how they tell their stories, then what does it say when it comes off as if US studios and their executives don’t treat their audiences with respect?  

After a while, even if the artists, directors, and creatives in the US animation scene are doing their damndest to get beyond the executive interference, you will want to crave something else. I remember when I took this journey in 2013/2014 to see Ernest & Celestine, a slow, low-key, visually vibrant film with a more timeless approach to its comedy and storytelling, and it planted a seed inside my mind of wanting to find other films like it. Whether it was aimed at kids, adults, or anyone in-between, the animated films from overseas have something for everyone. Sure, you will want to be in the mood to read subtitles for certain releases,and distributors who bring the films over need to start doing wider releases or at the very least longer release windows. And you will need to put in the effort to try and see them whether they hit the theaters or VOD, but you truly become a better fan of animation when you branch out. If all you watch are the big budget features from the US studio system, then you may see something not worthwhile, but once you pull back the curtain and take that first step, you will enter into a satisfying world full of wonders that you may have never seen before. With it now being easier than ever to find new and older animated films from around the world, why wait when you can get started seeing how wonderful and artistically satisfying the world of animation can be? If you are curious, here are the films I’m looking forward to hearing about the most from Annecy. 

Julian

Chimney Town: Frozen in Time 

Brave Cat

Paris ni Saku Etoile 

Tangles 

We Are Aliens 

In Waves 

The Keeper of the Camphor Tree 

Le Corset 

Lucy Lost 

Tana 

The Violinist 

Viva Carmen! 

A New Dawn 

Miyu and the Handsome General 

Peleliu: Guernica of Paradise 

The Obsessed 

Fleur

Welcome to Dolly’s House 

Soul Shift 

Zsazsa Zaturnnah

Company Sports Day